Category Archives: John

Aug 23 2012

Bruner on John 21.3

 

… I am impressed … in this chapter [John 21] … that John sees Jesus revealing himself, first and most impressively of all, to failing, not succeeding disciples. Jesus is, surprisingly, not recorded here as revealing himself to a prayer meeting (‘surprising’ because Jesus so honors prayer in this Gospel: e.g., ‘asking’ in John 4); ‘coming to me’ in John 6; and then especially in his Discipleship Sermons his repeated promises to ‘asking’ disciples in John 14.13-14; 15.7,16; 16.23,26-27; but perhaps in special particular, by the model of Jesus’ own ‘asking’ in his long, seventeenth-chapter prayer). Nor is Jesus reported here as coming to his disciples when they are gathered in Bible study (though Jesus seeks Christ-centered Bible study, esp. 5.39-40). Rather, John chooses to tell a story that teaches us that Jesus is comes, precisely, to disciples disappointed in their work (Recall Jesus’ first two Beatitudes, Matt. 5.3-4)

Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Eerdmans, 2012), p.1208

Aug 16 2012

Bruner on John 20.19

 

“‘… while the disciples were gathered together behind locked doors because of their fear of the Jewish people …‘ In the mid- and late-first century, the Christian disciples were from time-to time, in fact, gathered together behind locked doors because of their fear of the Jewish (and other) people, if the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles and other first century records are to be trusted. But in the longer subsequent centuries, when Christians became the majority and the Jewish people the minority, it was usually Jews who hid behinds locked doors for fear of Christians. Our present verse must not be allowed to perpetuate the canard of unique Jewish evil; it should, with every reading of comparable texts of Scripture, after a long and sorry history, be an occasion for the Christian confession of sin.”

Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Eerdmans, 2012), p.1161

Jul 12 2012

Bruner on John 16.9

 

“We often wonder what the foundational, basal, fundamental structure of reality is, under all the other foundations, basics and fundamentals: Is it political, economic, social, psychological, scientific, or religious? Though the last option, the religious, usually takes last place in our major media, it is, nevertheless, according to Jesus’ clear teaching here and throughout the Gospel, the fundamental structure of reality. Or more precisely and historically (for ‘religion’ is ambiguous), Jesus the Son of God and the Son of Man himself, in person, is the underlying reality of all realities. (He is every bit as much history as he is ‘religion.’) Therefore, being who he is, the refusal to believe him is the most wrong and hurtful fact in life. Out of this one basic evil flow all the other major evils in the world, in the present conviction of John’s Jesus. Wrong, or sin, most simply put, is rejecting Jesus.”

Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Eerdmans, 2012), pp.925-926

Jun 28 2012

Bruner on John 14.23

 

“The geography of God in believers’ lives is still a puzzle to me. I believe we are to think of the Father as living in heaven above; that is where Jesus prayed to him [see 11.14 and 17.1], even though Jesus spoke earlier in our chapter of ‘the Father who makes his home in me is doing his works,’ 14.10; and heavenward is where he told his disciples to pray to the Father when Jesus gave us our prayer: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven,’ Matt. 6.9. Since the word ‘heaven’ is the Lord’s Prayer is actually the plural ‘heavens’ or ‘skies’ [the dative-plural ouranois], I translate Jesus’ phrase ‘all the skies’ in order to catch the plurality or universality of the Father’s address. I think of the Father in ever sky, above every single head below. Then I believe we are to think of Jesus, the Father’s Son, as reigning at the Father’s right hand in heaven, immediately above us, too. And I believe, finally, that we are to think of the Holy Spirit as hovering just above us as well, like the Dove in Jesus’ baptismal scenes, Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, and John 1. But all three Persons of the Divinity are also ‘in‘ or ‘beside‘ us, from above, in their ability to reach to and into us with their love and directional presence, just as invisible satellites communicate messages into our electronic devices and cell phones and heads and hearts all day long and just as spouses are ‘in one another’ all day long in their love for one another, no matter how far they may be from one another spatially.

“The exact location of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit in our daily lives is not clear to me except that they are, in some miraculous way, near us – perhaps in an unseen ‘fifth’ dimension! – making their homes, from above, with and beside and even in us, and beside and in all of God’s people all over the world.”

Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Eerdmans, 2012), pp.843-844